Wednesday, February 23, 2011

I know of this place, the Pines Hotel in South Fallsburg, NY, from reading the 2002 book "Kiss and Make Up" by Gene Simmons, in which he states that he had worked at the Pines as a lifeguard for a summer or two when he was living in South Fallsburg, attending college in the late 1960's, a few years before he and that Stanley dude thought up the idea for the Hottest Band in the World.

Oh, that Gene Simmons - he has such a way with words. Anyway, a few years ago I was doing some digging online for something or other and I came across this cool website for...the Pines Hotel. The website detailed and documented a once beautiful hotel complex, once a favored family destination for a brief escape from the crushing summer heat of NYC, now deserted and falling into serious disrepair.

I just got this video in my email earlier today from the Pines website linked above with the following note: "This video was one of a series that was rescued from the abandoned hotel years ago. The VHS tapes that were recovered sat idle in a box for years and were recently uncovered."

Let's step back in time and look at what was...

Pines Hotel 4-minute infomercial ca. 1980s from AllAbandoned.com on Vimeo.
Eventually the Pines, like many other hotels in the area faced a serious decline in business and eventually closed it's doors. According to a 2006 newspaper article, "The Pines Hotel has been empty since at least 1999 when the Ehrlich family sold the property." By 2008, the Pines complex had been reduced, by nature and by man, to utter ruins...

In a January 2010 post, the Pines website posted the following: "With each passing year, the Pines decays more and more. Scrappers, vandals, arsonists, and rogue urban explorers trying to steal chandeliers have left the Pines in its worst condition ever. Frankly, there isn't much there to see anymore. What was once a moment frozen in time, a hotel without it's workers and guests, is now just like any other abandoned building. It is barely recognizable."

Monday, February 21, 2011

*Kurt Brecht (2005)
"The Punk Rock Saturday Matinees of CBGB's were legendary. We attended quite a few before finally landing a gig there. The gig itself was a blast, there was no match at the time, anywhere in the world, for the sheer ferocity of a pit at a NYC show, but afterwards, when it was time to get paid, the management informed us that one of our fans had smashed a toilet off the wall, since it happened during our set we were responsible! Our friends knew who did it but no one would tell because it was unthinkable, of course, to rat out your buddy. So we got nothing but a live audio tape off the mixing board and later, a video. It was back to eating free food handed out by the Krishnas at Tompkins Square Park. Flourescent yellow mush to get us through until the next day."

From Wikipedia:
Live Scenes from New York is a 3 disc live album by progressive metal band Dream Theater, recorded on August 30, 2000, at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City. Coincidentally, it was originally released on September 11, 2001, but when it was noticed that the cover artwork depicted the skyline of New York, including the twin towers of the World Trade Center in flames, it was recalled and re-released a short time later. Some copies with the original artwork still exist, and are now a rare collectors item.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Can't decide what to get that special someone for Valentine's Day? Sometimes the answer is all around us, and right where it's been for millions of years—like cockroaches! How better to express your appreciation for that special someone than to name a Madagascar hissing cockroach after them?

From Joe Matera.com via Blabbermouth.net...According to an interview recently conducted with New York Dolls guitarist Sylvain Sylvain, the New York Dolls will be touring with Motley Crue in the U.S. in June and July for a reported 40 date tour. Sylvain also commented on the status of the Dolls' current lineup, which, apparently for the tour, will NOT include former Blondie guitarist Frank Infante, who DID work record with the band some new tracks on their upcoming album "Dancing Backward In High Heels," which will see release on 03/15/11.

Sylvain: "...we're about to go on the road for 40 nights with MÖTLEY CRÜE this coming June-July in the States, and that's a lot of work and so he chose not to be there. But we made some calls and now we finally have got Earl Slick playing guitar. So Earl's going to be joining us for the upcoming tour. He's the newest member of the NEW YORK DOLLS, if I can put that right now."

Mr. Zero's entertainment shop is stranger than fiction. As you approach the purple, '70s-font sign and stride past the window display with a vintage mannequin surrounded by 45s and life-size rock-star cutouts, you feel like you're entering another dimension. And as you step through the portal, your mind whirls from the phantasmagorical array of posters, instruments, vinyl-record mobiles, and wall-to-wall vinyl with out-of-this-world cover art—from the Suburbs to Iggy Pop to the Runaways to Black Sabbath—beckoning music lovers with their siren call against the sonic backdrop of KISS blasting out of the stereo.Mr. Zero's "Pop Culture Heaven" is a used entertainment shop in Roseville, where you can buy, sell, trade, and consign. It's a nostalgic trip through the past, jettisoning you back to Camaro-rock days with a wall of hundreds of 8-tracks and cassettes, mostly rock. There are tons of CDs. Action figures, lunchboxes, and music memorabilia, including signed posters, photos, and guitars, fill walls and cases, along with video games, consoles, and record players from every era, plus videos and DVDs, antiques, vintage clothing, used books, board games...phew!
Read the full story and see a slide show of photos from inside the store at:CityPages.com

"First Avenue was center ring of the circus in Minneapolis and Saint Paul throughout the ‘80s. The Mainroom was Prince’s sweaty, sexy empire, a frigid, vitamin-deficient ocean populated by what we’d now call our moms. 7th St. Entry played the ugly, piss-stinking Siamese twin, dangling off the Mainroom’s shoulder and under the haphazard sway of Paul Westerberg and the boys and “rivals” and small-town interpersonal politics and many cans of Hamm’s."

*Click on the link above to read the rest and to listen to some great, recently unearthed audio recordings of nearly complete sets performed in the main room by The Replacements (87 minutes/dated as 198?) and P.I.L. (53 minutes/from 1982) as well as some shorter audio clips by (again) the Replacements, the Psychenauts and Jefferson's Cock.

Breakfast In America is the sixth album by the band Supertramp, released in 1979. It was recorded the previous year at the Village Recorder in Los Angeles. The album featured three US Billboard hit singles: "The Logical Song" (#6), "Goodbye Stranger" (#15), and "Take The Long Way Home" (#10). IN the UK, "The Logical Song" and title track were both top 10 hits, the only two the group had in their native country. Breakfast In America won two Grammy Awards in 1980, and would become Supertramp's most popular album: by 1990 it had sold in excess of 18 million copies worldwide." (Source: Wikipedia)

Saturday afternoon, February 5th, just after lunch, I hopped in the car and drove about an hour north and met up with some friends in Anoka. We gathered up a few of their neighbors and from there we all continued on in three vehicles to Clearwater, MN where we were to help set up the Legion Hall there for a spaghetti dinner/silent auction/concert/benefit for a young woman named Sarah Wierman. As the flyer at the top states, back on October 16th, 2010, Sarah was hit by a drunk driver and suffered multiple serious injuries. This benefit was put together by some of Sarah's close friends and co-workers (one of whom is married to one of my close friends, thus my involvement) to help raise much needed cash donations to help cover extensive costs associated with her medical treatment. An advance crew of around 10 of us arrived at the Clearwater Legion Hall around 2:30pm and began to get things set up.

The Stage and dance floor...just needs a band and some equipment.These would arrive shortly.Special "D9/Sarah's Crew" laminates.

Our friend Troy had these "D9/Sarah's Crew" Laminates printed up for all the volunteers and band members - each person working the event got one. In the photo below, the early arrivals pose for a group photo on the small Legion stage before the arrival of the band and gear.

Meanwhile, a small group of people were busy getting all the donations for the silent auction ready - pricing and tagging each item. Some of the items donated included a nice roller cooler I managed to get donated from the company I work for, several home-made blankets, a Minnesota Twins theme-printed birdhouse and a Minnesota Wild theme-painted birdhouse, a designer handbag, a pair of tickets to a Minnesota Twins game, 2 custom-made necklaces from J's Jewelry, several gift certificates for various local businesses, some gift baskets filled with all kinds of sweet goodies, a whole bunch of other miscellaneous crafts and odd stuff - there were many nice donations for people to choose from and we'd like to sincerely thank everyone who donated items for the auction. There were also a bunch of bake-sale items available to tide people's appetites over until the dinner was ready: cookies, brownies, rice-krispi bars, little bags of home-made chocolates and mints. Of course there was a steaming hot pot of coffee brewing on the counter as well.

By late afternoon the whole place smelled like a big steaming pot of Spaghetti and garlic bread as the time drew near for dinner to be served to the hungry crew and early arrivals. Everyone was commenting on how good the food smelled and how hungry they were getting. The band and crew were mostly finished setting up and people began to eat as soon as the food was ready. A few people wandered over from the bar side of the Legion and paid the $10.00 and joined us for the meal. The entire dinner was delicious and the portions were as generous as you requested. Slowly but surely the room began to come to life as a few more people began to file in and eat dinner and look through the silent auction items. I wandered around, taking more photos (You can see many more photos from this event not included in this piece HERE) contemplating when I'd have my own plate of Spaghetti and - when I finally did eat - I found it to be delicious and well worth the wait. I topped off my meal with a Sprite and 3 of the sinfully fresh and sticky-sweet .50cent rice-krispi bars at the bake sale booth.

Unfortunately, by 7:30 when it was almost time for Division Nine to begin their fist set, it was looking like we were not going to have a very good turnout for the dinner and silent auction. There was still plenty of food left and many of the items in the auction had only one or two bids and many had none at all. Still, we remained hopeful more people would arrive as the evening progressed. It never really turned out that way though...

A few minutes before the show the band took some time to pose for photos with events' special guest, Sarah Wierman, and her mom, Amy. An brief announcement was made that the silent auction would continue on through the bands' first set and that the winners would be announced during the break between the first and second sets.

The Division Nine guys and benefit recipient Sarah Wierman and her mother Amy.

With dinner, photos and the other formalities out of the way, around 7:45pm, the members of Division Nine climbed back on the tiny stage to a smattering of enthusiastic applause from the disappointingly smallish crowd assembled and began rocking their way through their first set (of three) of the evening like the joint was a packed house. I caught an advance peek at the setlist:

Throughout the course of the three sets, I filmed 15 songs at random. I've included a few highlights here, to see all the rest visit my Youtube page.

Hash Pipe

Mikey

Dirty White Boy

Steve

After the end of D9's first set the silent auction bidding came to an end and, as the band took a break, the winners were announced and the prizes handed out from the stage. Items that had not been bid on at all were sold in a quick, last minute auction from the stage, most items going for just a few dollars. It was quite evident that the prices would have gone much higher had more people come out and attended the event. But what are you gonna do, right? A short while later, the band was rested up and ready to rock, they kicked things off again for their second set of classic hard rock and heavy metal favorites. About an hour later they took a second break and then continued on with a 3rd and final set of songs, finishing up around 11:45pm. In all they played around 42 tunes to a small crowd of die-hards that remained throughout the course of the evening. After the silent auction had ended the small crowd became even a bit smaller as some people collected their items and left, leaving the rest of us to enjoy the music with plenty of leg and elbow room...every once in a while some of the ladies would jump up and dance, inspired into wild abandon by a song they particularly liked...like this one:

Crazy Bitch

Rob

Rebel Yell

A few of the die-hards who stayed on and danced till the livin' end.

Crazy Train

...and that was that. The few who remained said their good-byes and soon departed for home. The band and crew began packing up immediately after the show, the last of us still at the club packing up the sound equipment truck and finally leaving the Legion at around 1:30am for a two-hour drive home in...you guessed it...fresh snow.

*We'd like to thank everyone who DID come out and support Sarah and help make it a special night for her. Thanks also to all who donated items to and/or purchased items from the silent auction. Thank you also to the staff of the Clearwater Legion for all of your assistance, the members of "Sarah's Crew," for your long hours devoted to making the evening as successful as it could be despite the low turnout, and to Division Nine for providing a great evening of fun and classic rock and roll for all.